The Henry Jackson Society and scaremongering with AIPAC

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is North America’s most vociferous pro-Israel lobby group. This week Alan Mendoza of Britain’s Henry Jackson Society offered an interesting glimpse into what appears to be one of the main preoccupations of his organisation; namely, scaremongering about Muslims. The Henry Jackson Society has been described as a “neoconservative think tank” which, claims Sameh Libdeh, acts in Britain on behalf of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party.

The society absorbed another far-right think tank called the Centre for Social Cohesion in September 2011. Spinwatch produced a report called “The Cold War on British Muslims” which investigated the roles of the Centre for Social Cohesion and Policy Exchange in whipping-up fear of Muslims in Britain and America. A recent report by HJS, “Al Qaeda in the United States”, was featured in a sensational report on Fox News, no doubt aiming to divert attention from men with long beards in Afghanistan to the all-American Muslim boy next door. No wonder there are so many attacks on Muslims and their places of worship in the US.

The Henry Jackson Society’s list of advisors and staff is a veritable who’s who of those pushing an anti Muslim agenda with Executive Director Alan Mendoza at the top. One ex-contributor to the HJS, academic Marko Atilla Hoare, has claimed that Mendoza got rid of all the founder members of the group in what he describes as a “putsch”. Dr. Hoare left the HJS after it took what he said was a rather alarming lurch to the right. His website points out that the society “includes among its Trustees Michael Gove, the current Secretary of State for Education, and it is alleged to have influenced the foreign policy of David Cameron and William Hague. It currently serves as a secretariat, at the House of Commons, to the All-Party Parliamentary Groups for Transatlantic and International Security and for Homeland Security.”

Thus do we begin to get a glimpse of the possible influence that the Henry Jackson Society may have on government policy at Westminster.
Mendoza’s speech to AIPAC included the perceived threat to Israeli interests in Europe because of immigration and a rising Muslim population. Can you imagine the furore if anyone stood up and started to talk about the threat from a rising Jewish population? The presumed “threat” to Israeli interests has to be increasing Muslim awareness of what Israel is doing to the Palestinians in the territory occupied in 1948 and 1967.

It has to be assumed that Muslims having their own media sources outside of the largely pro Israel mainstream are often in possession of facts about the real situation in Palestine and Israel’s murderous policies towards Palestinians that Mendoza and his masters would prefer the European public not to hear. Even worse, from Israel’s perspective, is the fact that the people of Europe might not only see through Israeli “hasbara” (propaganda) as a result of greater interaction with Muslims, but also realise that the neocon propaganda about Islam and Muslims generally is nothing less than scaremongering.

Rather strangely for a European, Mendoza told AIPAC, “There also is the whole concept of defending one’s country that seems foreign to Europeans… who truly believe talk is the answer.” At a stroke, he discounted himself and his own country from any links with Europe, which I find rather disturbing; Mendoza talks about Europeans as some sort of “other”. Even more worrying is that he appears to be giving tacit support to violence, state or otherwise, as the way to resolve international conflict. Does this mean that he defends Israel’s murderous policy of assassinating those whom its government wishes to silence? What about Israel’s genocidal policies against the Palestinians? Does he support those?

A poll carried out by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre suggested that Israel is indeed, in the view of most Europeans, the biggest threat to world peace. Rather than condoning the actions of such an aggressive country, surely Mendoza should be asking when Britain and America will stop sacrificing our young men and women in unjust and unlawful invasions of Muslim lands to protect Israel and Israeli interests.

Continuing his anti-European tirade to AIPAC, Mendoza accused the European Union of being “obsessive about finding a just and peaceful solution, a two-state solution” to the conflict in the Holy Land. It must be very inconvenient for the likes of Mendoza and AIPAC’s apologists for Israel (a state with a massive standing army funded largely by US tax dollars at a time when US citizens are seeing public services and benefits cut by Washington) that there are Americans and Europeans who prefer a peaceful solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict instead of the “war-war, not jaw-jaw” approach that they prefer. It is clear that Israel’s vision for a peaceful solution, what might ironically be called a final solution, is that it controls as much of historic Palestine with as few Palestinians on it as possible.

AIPAC, and Mendoza, probably have no need to worry and can sleep easily knowing that most government ministers in Britain are “Friends of Israel”. Indeed, it was reported that two British MPs were in the AIPAC audience listening to Mendoza’s speech. One, Andrew Percy, the Conservative MP for Brigg and Goole has been described as one of his party’s “most rebellious MPs”. On this issue, however, he appears to be keen to toe the pro-Israel line, being very keen to let Americans know “that about 70 per cent of the Conservative Members of Parliament support Israel and are concerned” about threats to the state.

As a British citizen I must say that I am more than concerned about how much organisations like the Henry Jackson Society can influence Conservative Party policy; the party is, after all, the main partner in our governing coalition. Keeping the numbers of Muslims in Britain and Europe down is clearly a priority for the HJS, not because of any existential threat to the UK, but because of the influence they could have on government policy towards Israel and its illegal expansionist policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. The government should be open about how far pro-Israel lobby groups in Britain are influencing policy; we need to know that our officials are acting in Britain’s best interests, not those of Israel.

2 comments

Genocide
I am sure this same website reminded us that according to a Hadith – talk by Sh. Hadad i believe – there will be a Genocide of muslims in europe??
Well the cogs are being put in place via the far right organisations – throughout europe.

Once these organisation called for ‘all foreigners’ to be sent ‘home’ – now ALL these separate and independent organisations are suddenly and at the same time calling for ‘muslims’ to be …… well we know the end result and their intentions regardless of wht they actually say….. genocide.
Everyone is awake – except the muslims themselves.
May Allah swt have mercy on us.

Islamic FaithIslam is the fastest growing faith in Britain. Hundreds and thousands of Brits are reverting to Islam. By the middle of this century, over half of Brits would be Muslims.

New research has shown more women convert to Islam than men – in fact, they account for 60 per cent of conversions. They believed that they should be a force for good by building bridges between the Muslim and Non Muslim communities in order to understand Islam better.

Examples of women who have left high powered jobs in the city, educated women who mostly found out about Islam independently via books, the internet or discussion with Muslims; seem to be the picture that is portrayed in this study. This clearly demonstrates a clear pattern of converts who while non Muslim rethought their lives and actively sought to reject secular values, for a belief system offering spiritual and worldly guidance in order to regulate life in a meaningful and fulfilling way. The rejection of materialism and decadence seem to be some of the catalysts in making that change.

One of the most high-profile examples is Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth, who recently announced she had adopted the faith after a trip to Iran. The conversion of Lauren Booth will have a positive impact, despite claims that it is just attention-seeking. It will encourage people to convert, unless they idolise her, but I think that it will educate people and make them more interested in learning about Muslims. It’s all about having a look at the Quran with an open mind, without presumptions and assumptions…Then would the reader understand what the beautiful religion is
all about….

Increasing numbers of young, university-educated women in their twenties and thirties are converting to Islam. Well – educated white women are more likely to convert to Islam than other groups. Through wearing modest clothing, all the way to a head scarf, it’s no longer about how you look, It’s getting free from this idea that you are defined by your dress size.” At the London Central Mosque in Regent’s Park, women account for roughly two thirds of the “New Muslims” who make their official declarations of faith – and most of them are under the age of 30.

The question is why are so-called liberated women choosing Islam. Such women are part of an intriguing trend. They seek spirituality, a higher meaning, and tend to be deep thinkers.

While 9/11 has led to a western military and ideological onslaught on Islam, 9/11 has also been the catalyst for increasing numbers, born and bred in the west, to question and reject western values and convert to Islam.

It is also of no surprise that no matter what policies or narrative is pushed by governments, writers, thinkers or elements of the media to try and reason away such conversions as ‘fringe’, ‘coercion’ or ‘blind following,’ this trend will continue in a world that seeks to understand the extent to which Capitalist liberal values have failed man in every sense and left a void which can only be filled by the truth!

“I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of
its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to
possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which
can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him – the wonderful man
and in my opinion for from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the
Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the
dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems
in a way that would bring it the much
needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad
that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to
be acceptable to the Europe of today.” [G.B. Shaw, THE GENUINE ISLAM, Vol.
1, No. 81936.]
Iftikhar Ahmadhttp://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk